1. finance
2. personal finance
3. saving

Are You Ready for
Bitcoin? (Is the World
Ready for Bitcoin?)
Bebo White
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/
Stanford University
bebo@slac.stanford.edu
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Who owns Bitcoin?
Why?/Why Not?
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https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+sucks
~2,400,000 results
https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+rocks
~52,400,000 results
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What is Bitcoin?
• Designed for an “Internet Society” using Internet
technologies
• Decentralized and independent of “state currencies”
• Excellent for anonymous transactions like “hard
currency” (i.e., unlike credit cards)
• Excellent for E-Commerce - online exchange, no
specific currency, micro payments
• Easily convertible to “state currencies”
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People are using it…
• Not just for illegal activities (e.g., Silk Road)
• Some financial analysts advise portfolio
diversification with BTC
• Sacramento Kings - customized jersey (.37 BTC)
• Egifter - $500 Hyatt voucher (.601 BTC)
• Lamborghini Newport Beach - pre-owned Tesla
Model S (91.4 BTC)
• EVR Gastro-Lounge - Vanilla Mint Julep (0.18 BTC)
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First, a quick look at
money…
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Token Money
• Represented by a physical object (token)
such as a banknote, coin, traveler’s check,
etc.
• Without that token, the value is lost
• No intermediary is required for spending
• BUT - requires faith in the ISSUER, usually a
government or a bank
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Notational Money
• Represented by a notation in a ledger,
passbook or database (e.g., a bank account)
• Notational money cannot be lost
• BUT - requires an intermediary (bank or
clearing house) for spending
• ALSO - requires faith in the MAINTAINER
of the ledger
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Hybrid Money
• Requires BOTH a token AND a ledger
account (e.g., personal check, stored value
or gift card)
• Can be lost AND requires faith in the
ISSUER
• AND requires an intermediary (bank or
clearing house) for spending
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Virtual Money (?)
•
•
•
No token
•
No intermediary required
for spending
No ledger
No issuer, no government
backing (or supervision)
BUT
•
Is this even possible?
•
Who creates the money?
Why is it money?
•
Without a token or ledger,
how do you know how
much you have? What is its
value?
•
How do you know the
spender is the owner?
•
What prevents spending
the same money twice?
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Another reason to
backup…
• Your money is just a string of bytes (data)
on your device
• Device failure means your money is gone
• Device intrusion means your money can be
stolen
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Analogy: Real Estate
ownership is defined by a “chain of title,” a sequence of deeds
• Land
leading from the original owner to the present owner
• Deeds are recorded in the Land Registry
• Ownership determined by searching the Registry
• The Land Registry is, in effect, a ledger holder
• If the Registry is altered, ownership can be lost
• Double-selling is prevented by timestamps
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Distributed Registry
• Suppose we broadcast ALL deeds to thousands of nodes
of a decentralized public network?
• IF the deeds are genuine AND the network members
agree on the chain of title, THEN we can tell who owns a
piece of property
• Ask the network and count the responses - if a majority
say that someone is the owner, then they are
• There must be enough honest members that false
responses cannot dominate (or they have some incentive)
• The registry is NOT under government control
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A Little Math - Hash
Functions
•
A “hash” is a short function
of a message
•
BUT: a hash is not uniquely
reversible
•
Many messages have the
same hash
•
Hash function H produces a
fixed size hash of message M,
usually 128-512 bits
•
h = H(M)
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One-Way Hash
Functions
• Hashes are easy (fast) to compute but
computationally difficult to invert
• Should not be able to find any message
corresponding to a given hash
• Bitcoin uses a well-known published hash function
SHA-256, which produces 256 bit hashes
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A Little More Math/CS Asymmetric Encryption
• Same as public-private key encryption
• Provides the security in PKI/certificates,
HTTPS, secure e-mail, digital signatures, etc.
• Everyone has a public key (which they openly
share) and a private key (which they protect)
that are linked by very complex mathematics
• Insures end-to-end security, non-repudiation,
etc.
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What is Bitcoin Really?
• No physical object, not even a character string
• “A chain of digitally signed transaction records leading from the
original owner to the current holder” - similar to a chain of
land deeds
• The transaction records contain
• Hashes that are difficult to find AND
• Virtual owner IDs, called addresses
• There is NO bitcoin registry, NO centralization
• Bitcoin blockchains are broadcast to everyone; anyone can
verify them
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Bitcoin Protocol
• Bitcoin was invented in 2008 by an
anonymous person or team named “Satoshi
Nakamoto”
• The bitcoin protocol for generating and
exchanging bitcoin is implemented in
publicly available, open source software
• Anyone can obtain and run a bitcoin client
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Bitcoin Addresses
• Bitcoin software generates bitcoin addresses of 25-44
characters for users
• Sample address: 1BBsbEq8Q29JpQr4jygjPof7F7uphqyUCQ
• The address is actually an elliptic curve public key; a 44
character key is as secure as a 7000-bit RSA key
• To send bitcoins, user specifies a receiving address and
amount then clicks “send”
• To receive bitcoins, just tell the sender your address!
• Addresses are not registered to users. A user can have a
different address for every transaction
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So if you want to pay me
something…
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How do you get bitcoin?
• Sell something
• Salary (?)
• Use a bitcoin exchange (including bitcoin ATMs)
• Bitcoin mining
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Bitcoin Mining (1/4)
• Bitcoin blockchain begins with data “mined” by
using a large number of hash function computations
• “Mining” software is run on mining machines
• A “miner” tries many different (e.g., 10^15)
numbers, trying to find one whose hash value is less
than a given threshold (A); a “brute force”
computation
• Verified success is rewarded with a number of
bitcoins (N)
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Bitcoin Mining (2/4)
Miner includes N BTC
x = blockchain
in “y” for themselves
y= proposed added block
n = additional number (nonce)
Miner broadcasts solution
A = threshold value
to network for
N = miner’s reward
verification
find n such that:
N began at 50 and
H(x,y,n) < A
is halved every
210,000 blocks
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Bitcoin Mining (3/4)
• Example: problem or “proof of work”
• Find a number (nonce) so that the
cryptographic hash of the block and the
nonce starts with some required number
of binary zeros (e.g., 40)
• Once solved the miner transmits the
block to the network for verification,
collects reward, and starts on new block
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Controlled Bitcoin
Inflation
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Bitcoin Mining (4/4)
• The threshold (A) adjusted every 2 weeks (to
establish rate of 6 blocks/hour)
• Therefore, bitcoin hashes are progressively more
difficult to find (i.e., finding “n” more difficult); part
of finding “n” involves verifying that no bitcoin
transacted in block “y” has already been spent in
blockchain “x” (Merkle trees)
• There will never be more than 21 million BTC.
(2*50*210,000); divisible into units as small as 1/100
millionth of a BTC
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Merkle Trees
MacMania 17, Somewhere@Sea, June 2014
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Is this really different from
stock market, currency market,
commodities market
fluctuations?
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Bad things happen - Mt. Gox vs.
Bernie Madoff
Willie Sutton would use bitcoin
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Possible Vulnerabilities
• No way to reverse a transaction without the payee’s
cooperation
• Software bugs
• Bank robbery by hackers (e.g., Mt. Gox)
• Malware attacks against wallets
• Government attempts to control
• Silk Road raided by FBI in October 2013
• Competing digital currencies easy to make (forks) - Auroracoin,
Dogecoin, Namecoin, Primecoin, and others - imitation is
flattery
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Possible Future of Bitcoin/
Virtual Currencies (Social)
• For the world’s unbanked, there is no choice
• For small businesses, freelancers and startups in
developing nations, there is no choice
• When you have choice, it is hard to imagine those
without
• New generation growing up with instant
expectations, who are or will be disillusioned by
huge economic bailouts
• From stones to precious metals to paper to bytes
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Possible Future of Bitcoin/Virtual
Currencies (Economic/Political)
• A future with digital currencies and decentralized
stores is guaranteed - people trust math over
people
• National adoption of decentralized currencies
would bring political transparency and economic
neutrality
• Developing nations seeking to curb corruption
and break free of economic dependence on other
countries could see potential in these technologies
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Summary - the 5
Elements of Bitcoin
• Currency - send units of value, convertible, divisible
• Commodity - scarcity stores wealth, market
fluctuates with speculation
• Brand - marketing message, community and sharing
knowledge
• Protocol - decentralized trust on the block chain
• Technology - services and solutions implemented
and integrated
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I own bitcoin - why not
you?
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Thank You!
Questions? Comments?
bebo@slac.stanford.edu
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